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Fahrenheit 451 in Kansas City
May 29, 2007
Tom Wayne, co-owner of Prospero's Books in Kansas City, couldn't stand it anymore. It wasn't the heat or the humidity that had him steaming -- it was the indifference of people to books. When he couldn't even give away volumes from his inventory of more than 20,000 to libraries of thrift shops, he declared a "funeral pyre for thought in America today" and burned a batch of books.
Mike Bechtel, a customer who bought some bargains from the stack waiting to go up in flames, said "I think given the fact it is a protest of people not reading books, it's the best way to do it. (Wayne has) made the point that not reading a book is as good as burning it."
Hmmmmmmmm. While Wayne cites statistics about the decline in reading for pleasure, and his business partner Will Leathem says local tag sales often sport multiple TVs and very few books, was it not ever thus? It's worth considering a quote of Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury's that can be found on Wikipedia:
"In writing the short novel
Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."
I'm not a bookseller, and I'm sure that Tom Wayne has some strong evidence that people aren't reading right now. But I do wonder if there are a couple of other forces at work, namely the enormous amount of books being published today (hence gluts in libraries and thrift shops), and the now-familiar theme of alienation in modern life. Substitute the white cords of iPod headphones for that woman's "tiny copper wires," and that quote could have been printed today -- instead of in 1960.
What do you think?
Posted by Bethanne Patrick on May 29, 2007 | Comments (5)
